> [The goal of UNCOL was to have a universal intermediate language which would> let you mix and match multiple language front ends and multiple architecture> back ends. I don't think anyone denies that if you have a single source> language, there are plenty of multi-targeted systems that work well. Do> recall that this particular line of discussion started with the suggestion> that languages like C and C++ might be compiled into JVM as a way to achieve> universal portability. -John]

I'm surprised no one has mentioned C as a resonably sucessful multi-langauge
multi-target UNCOL. f2c,p2c,m2c, Scheme->C, sml2c, Mercury, ghc, .... all
compile to C to obtain some pretty resonable performance and a good deal of
portability, with a few warts of course. Compiling to C is really just a
cheap hack to interface with traditional compiler backends so
compiler/langauge implementors don't reinvent the wheel all the time. The
world doens't need UNCOL, just a well designed "universal" backend with a
clean interface. Course the interface may be an UNCOL of sorts.